Ask HN: How many hours do you work?

SrSDE / Scala. Not normal. I used to do 37-38 hours as contractor. Little bit more as a fulltime, but there is some overlap with my hobbies.

40 hours most weeks but when a project deadline is nearing then it might be 45 hours. You don't generally get any utility from working longer and actually are more productive with a lesser schedule. Burn out is very real.

Early in my career, I routinely worked 50 hrs/wk. Not on purpose; I just preferred to get to the office early to avoid the morning rush hour, and I often stayed around late to get a drink with co-workers after work. I was always productive, and it wasn't until years later that I realized that 50 hrs/wk adds up to an extra 3 months/yr.

Same job, about six years into it, a major project came up that I had staked my reputation on. For almost six months, I was working 80-100 hrs/wk. It destroyed me. My metabolism shut down, my thyroid was damaged. My body temperature dropped from 98.6F to 97F, and overnight while I slept it dropped to 96F and I had trouble waking up in the mornings. I found out later that if it had dropped any lower than that, my body would not have been able to warm itself back up. It took about a decade for my temperature to return to normal, but I still need thyroid medication. And my ability to work long hours has never returned; it's a good thing productivity continues to increase with experience. I work a lot smarter now.

EDIT: the project was a success, at least. My boss was awarded employee of the year, but I was awarded second employee of the year, which was the only time they did that. I also got a little engraved glass plaque, the kind that comes from a corporate gifts catalog. Maybe a $50 gift card too. So worth destroying my metabolism for over a decade.

I work from home, and typically I’m “In the office,” about 32-40 hours a week.

I find that I can sustain a max of about 4 hours of focused work (programming) a day before I’m just mentally worked over. If there isn’t more project management/coordination work to do, then I’ll just call it a day.

There have been short seasons where I’ve averaged quite a bit more, but I don’t know that I was ever actually more productive. For me it feels like I hit a point at which there is no more work to be wrung out of me, no matter how long I sit in a chair.

At the same time, I find that work is often on my mind during the rest of my life, and here and there an idea pops up while I’m engaged in another activity.

I used to do contract programming and found that was the hardest part - my brain was at work a lot of the time outside of “work hours,” but how was I ever going to Bill the client for that?

Currently I'm working as a contractor, with a pretty low cap on the number of hours I'm allowed to bill. My current schedule looks like this:

Monday: 9am-4pm

Tuesday: 9am-2pm

Wednesday I take off.

Thursday and Friday I do childcare.

There is a little bit of flexibility, but on average I'm working 12 hours a week. I'm going back to working "full time" soon, which will involve 9AM-4:30PM Monday-Friday. On the one hand having more work will be good, but on the other hand losing the extra time spent with our child will be hard.